


Aftercare of Your Reluctant Sadist

by codswallop



Series: Masochism for Geniuses [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Kink Negotiation, M/M, Nightmares, Painplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-04
Updated: 2010-10-04
Packaged: 2017-10-12 10:20:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codswallop/pseuds/codswallop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has a lot of trouble with this thing they do, some days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftercare of Your Reluctant Sadist

John has ground rules now that he'd never dreamed would be necessary in his pre-Sherlock life. The disturbing thing is how quickly the rules require revision and addendum as his own boundaries keep sliding. _No hitting_ has become _No hitting with a closed fist_ , for example, while _No breaking the skin_ fell by the wayside entirely, early on. _Nothing above the neck or below the cuffs_ , that one stays. He'd typed them all out at one point, needing to be perfectly clear about the whole thing, but he'd had to delete the file because the thought of accidentally publishing it to his blog somehow gave him cold sweat nightmares.

In fact, John's nightmares, which had disappeared almost entirely for a while, have been getting worse again lately. He's not sure what to make of that. No doubt his therapist would have some interesting ideas, if he hadn't quit seeing her.

*

"Hold _still_ ," he tells Sherlock impatiently. They haven't tried much nipple-play before, and it's surprisingly awkward, in part because Sherlock keeps bucking him off whenever he gets a good grip. There are tools he could use for this, he's seen them online, in late-night searches that make him bite his lip and blur his eyes a little, unable to look directly at the screen. He can't imagine himself having the necessary _intent_ to purchase such specifically designed implements, and anyway he seems to be more of a DIY sadist.

Also, he prefers to hurt Sherlock with his own hands, whenever possible.

Skin is slippery, though, more so when it's sweating and trembling and flinching involuntarily. John digs his fingernails in viciously, and feels Sherlock go rigid with the effort to keep still.

"I can't--" Sherlock says, high and desperate and strained. "John, that's too-- Whitechapel, _Whitechapel!_ "

It was John who'd insisted on a safeword, but Sherlock hasn't ever used it before. John can't believe his ears for a moment, and then he just plain doesn't want to. _Oh come on, for this?_ he wants to say. He's done much worse than this before, surely, and he's _close_ , damn it. He hesitates, maintaining the pressure.

Sherlock gives a low, breaking moan, beyond speech, and John suddenly realizes what he's doing and lets go, almost shoving him away in his haste to back off. Sherlock collapses onto his side, grey and twitching, breathing in shallow hitches.

"Sorry," John says quickly. "God, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, are you all right?" Sherlock is curled in on himself, arms crossed over his chest, but he doesn't resist when John pushes him gently over onto his back and pulls his arms away to assess the damage.

"Fine, it's fine, just--too sensitive there," Sherlock offers shakily. "I did warn you."

"You did," John agrees. "My fault. Let me see?" There's a bit of blood, not much. John reaches for the bedside table drawer, finding the tube of antiseptic ointment that gets depleted nearly as quickly as the lube these days. This ought to be the part that he likes, and he does, in a way. There's a professional satisfaction in it, and a personal one, too: the novelty of Sherlock, _Sherlock_ , this sharp and biting entity of pure intellect, turned pliant and biddable under his hands, accepting animal solace.

It isn't the healing he likes best, though. It's the _hurting_. It frightens him how much he likes it. It shouldn't be allowed.

*

There's another nightmare that night. It's very bad. When John eventually manages to fight his way back to reality, his throat is hoarse with shouting and he's _still_ struggling because some idiot is _sitting on his chest_ , clamping his wrists, pinning him, don't they _know_ that's the worst thing they could possibly--

"John. _John_. John?" There's a note of fear in Sherlock's voice, and that's what grounds him, finally. He forces himself to relax. When Sherlock releases him he immediately rolls away, gets down off the bed and scoots himself into the corner of the room with his back to the walls, breathing and breathing and wishing there were more air and less furniture in the room.

Sherlock gets down on the floor with him, keeping a careful distance. "You were...hitting yourself, clawing at yourself," he explains. "I'm sorry, I know you don't like to be held down. Water?" John nods once, eyes closed. By the time Sherlock comes back with a glass he's managed to strip off his sodden shirt and get back on the bed again.

"I dreamt I'd killed you," John tells him, because it seems like something Sherlock should know. "I couldn't make myself stop. You bled out in my hands, I was trying to stitch it but it just kept ripping wider open--" He can't stop shuddering.

Sherlock brings him a dry shirt and tugs it on over his head, guiding his arms into the sleeves as though John is five. "Lie down," he says, and gets into bed with him, facing him, watching him, not touching. Thinking. "This is about earlier today?"

John turns away, stares at the ceiling. "I didn't stop. When you said. I didn't stop."

"Yes you did." Sherlock sounds puzzled.

"No. No, I didn't. Not right away. I didn't want to." He swallows. "I'm afraid of what all this is doing to me, Sherlock."

Silence. He turns his head and finds Sherlock looking at him with a crestfallen expression, as though he's an experiment that hasn't yielded the desired result.

"It's a game, John," Sherlock tells him. "It's just something I enjoy. It's all right for you to enjoy it too; I am, I can assure you, a very willing participant. But if you don't--"

"I _do_ ," John says vehemently. "Too much, don't you see?"

Sherlock doesn't see, he can tell. John gives a small frustrated sigh and rolls onto his side, facing the wall, closing his eyes. After a minute Sherlock curls in close to him, drapes an arm over his waist, tentative and warm. John isn't sure he's ready to be touched, enclosed like this, but he appreciates the gesture; Sherlock's not generally a cuddler. He inhales to a count of four, exhales to eight, until he no longer needs to pull away.

"I love how careful you are," Sherlock tells him, his voice low and rumbly at the nape of John's neck, sending a splinter of ice right down his spine. "I love making you walk that edge, where you forget to be so careful. It's beautiful. And I love the way it feels, how very _in my body_ I am when you're hurting it, it's like being the center of everything in the universe."

"You make it sound so _nice_ ," John says wryly.

"It is nice."

"I'm a doctor," John reminds him. "I'm supposed to take away people's pain, not...get off on it."

Sherlock considers this. "You don't want to do this with your patients at the surgery, do you?"

John is, briefly, helpless with laughter. "No. Just you." The words sober him again. "Just the one who matters most." He's just shown his hand, badly, and he winces, but Sherlock seems to take it as his due.

"Well, then. And you're not actually afraid you'd kill me, surely; they're only minor flesh wounds, really, and you're very safe about it. And I'm not tied up and helpless, I'd stop you if you did anything life-threatening, I don't have a death wish."

"Don't you?"

"Mostly not," Sherlock concedes. "Not anymore."

"Oh," John says. Sherlock's just shown his hand as well, it occurs to him.

He wonders if he'd have ever discovered this desire on his own, in that inconceivable version of the universe in which he _didn't_ happen to meet Sherlock Holmes, and decides that he probably wouldn't have. He'd never particularly wanted to risk life and limb hunting down criminals for the sheer adrenaline rush of it, either. And yet.

Another dark path he'll follow this man down, then. And if it helps to think of it as Sherlock's need he's following, and not his own...well, whatever gets him through the night, right? He'll revise his sliding list of rules as necessary, he'll continue to struggle with it, but he'll allow himself to claim this as something he can do.

Anyway, if he called a stop to it now, Sherlock would likely do more damage to himself than John ever could. And he does enjoy being _useful_.

John turns, fitting their bodies together in a more comfortable position, and lets his hand find the sharpness of Sherlock's hipbone. His thumb goes to a spot he knows well, where there's a purpling bruise he can still see with his mind's eye--shocking colors against the milky landscape--and he caresses it, not quite pressing, just a reminder, a promise.

"Mm," Sherlock says, sounding nearly asleep, and clasps his hand over John's. "Tomorrow. If you want to."

"I always want to," John admits, but for now he's content to bite Sherlock very lightly on the collarbone, once, and fall asleep on him there.


End file.
